Matrix for self improvement, PMP related,

2. BOSS Vs SBOS Matrix
I have been working on this matrix since a long time. I have received humongous feedback
and responses from many of you who are reading this article right now. The theory behind
this article is “working in organization” and you may relate it to your organization depending
on your interest.
I have worked with many organizations till now and all my experience fits into this matrix. It
may happen that this matrix needs upgrade over a period of time.
There are few open questions that I would like you to work on during “listen” to this article.
 For an employee ( I was planning to write “working employee”), does this matrix best
describes what his duties are towards organization?
 Would you agree with the findings that I have? Would you like to share your thought
that you may feel otherwise?
Vanilla Presentation of Matrix
This matrix on the left hand side shows
colors with heading. It’s unlike “Gartner
Magic Quadrant” where multiple vendors are
placed as per their work priority and ranking
as per the Market.
Red Color – Danger. Its High priority and
High impact.
Green Color – High priority and Low impact.
Light Green Color – High impact and Low
priority.
Gray Color – Low Priority and Low Impact.
Every color mentioned here has significance
wrt to its importance.
Colors also represent the nature of activity these squares represents.
The choice of putting RED color in the TOP RIGHT corners makes lot of sense where business is
cash and curry (service business) that has customer as the only way to make revenue.

3. The choice of putting GRAY in the left BOTTOM corner makes lot of sense of services
business because Trainings and Team Management make less sense for the business and
business would like to make ‘every penny counts’.
Switching the positions:
I like to play with the colors and squares. To
the things in a little different perspective, I
changed the square’s position. As I move
the position of a particular square, the
activity mentioned in that also moves with
the square.
If we move the light green square to the right
top corner, it becomes high priority high
impact. But, the positioning doesn’t look
correct. No organization would like business
to suffer at the cost of sales and revenue.
What is the solution to this? Let’s move
further.
Can we make the positioning like this?
Here RED color again shows its RED hot,
high impact and high priority. Business
would like to work this way but look at the
department perspective.
If organization deals with lot of issues, very
less likely the organization would work on
new initiatives. Or to put it in diff perspective,
there will be very less time and energy
(intellectuals) to think in that direction. After
all, your think tank will be empty by the time

4. you think about NEW Innovative ways to
work.
Employee perspective:
On the contrary, what employee thinks?
(wants– most of you will agree with this.)
Most employees in many organizations
would like to work on new initiatives as well
as look at the self career development.
Can most employees find self career
development in the work that they do (On
JOB)? They would like to. But, very few gets
that kind of opportunity. That will be ideal
scenario.
Would only On JOB, self career
development is sufficient to be competitive in
the market? How about On JOB trainings or
trainings that are needed to do the JOB and
do the JOB effectively.
There are various ways a TASK can be / will be completed. But the person, who is doing this TASK
is well versed with all the skills required to perform that TASK. And, how productivity details are
measured vis-à-vis the skills the person has.
Analogy to this, in order to find out the optimal way of completing a task will largely depend on the
situations that will differ with time and change as the time passes. Even considering that
dependency and situational changes, one will still have to measure the effectiveness.
Obviously, the person with low skills and with high relevant skills will perform the TASK in a different
ways with varying efficiency. Does it have impact on the business? Of course, yes!! Hence, trainings
and self career development is very much necessary for employees to work on to perform better and
efficiently. Hence, these factors are utmost important for Organizations to perform better.

5. HR and Team Management gets control:
Let’s look at this. If we keep Trainings /
Team Management in the RIGHT TOP
corner which is HIGH impact HIGH Priority.
Why it should be?
Most organization don’t care about trainings.
Some organizations do not
recognize/understand or pretend to
understand that trainings are for employees
who work for their organization, who build
their organization or support ( give a helping
hand) in some or the other way to build the
organization.
If the skills are not managed properly (mis-management
of skills), it results to
unproductive work.
That also results into inefficient manner of working. This
leads to issues and breakdown (in terms of application
downtime, sales drop, business drop and employee
morale drop).
These all are interrelated. Gone are the days
of factory labors (when they used to put their
brains @ home and come work ). In today’s
world, organization to succeed, it is utmost
important to have trainings and adequate
team management ( skills management).
So, when this would happen? What I said

6. Question that one should ask, why then the
organizations asks their employees to work on the new
initiatives if they are not valid, proven. Is the
management managing men or man-handling?
I heard this joke from Prof. Bhattachargee in one of the
recent training. He said “I asked one of the students (he
calls the employee who comes for training “his
students”), what are you handling?”. Student stands up
and says “sir, I am handling men”. Prof reiterates” so,
are you man handler?”
So we are back to square!! Organization is asking us to
work on things that are invalid, unverified and
unproven.
previously, Training and Skills management
are two key management tools that
organizations should embody to ensure that
there are no issues that results failures.
What happened to the organization
initiatives and functional alignment?
Well, Organization initiatives mostly are
borrowed. They are never valid in one
situation. They may be valid, tried and tested
on one organization. But, it does not
guarantee that it will work the same way that
it has worked for ‘X’ organization.
At the same time, there are Organizations
who just provide guidelines and you have to
abide to the guidelines. Work innovatively,
creatively as per your flexibility and produce
work class products, services that customers
will love you for and pay anything that you
ask for than you creating services and
playing the price war with the competition.
The above matrix fits well for the Oracle,
Google, apple, MicroSoft, IBM and the likes
of that. Even the smaller organization are
doing good in terms of the quality of
products that they offer in the market vis-à-vis
big organization that have huge
manpower and less creativity. They are
manufactures. You don’t want to be one of
the them “Manufactures”.
Finally, coming back to the TOPIC.

7. BOSS Vs SBOS
Based on the responses I have received
from various groups of people, I categorised
what would fit in four squares. Those are
mentioned here.
Question that remains un-answered is which
suits whom better?
My take:
Keeping the LIGHT GREEN square in the TOP Right corner suits the selfish employee who is
introvert.
But at the same time, if the so called “selfish employee” opens up then he/she can do wonders for
the organizations. This we have seen above.
Keeping RED SQUARE in the TOP Right corner depicts the business organizations who are led
by a WEAK leader with no clear directions on objective having short term and near short term vision.
This also depicts the orgs with less of standardization and does documented processes. Mostly runs
on WHIMS and FANCIES of management and leaders of the org.
GRAY Square in the top right corner depicts orgs which are employer oriented at the same time
they value the org and employee equally. If you can get a buy in from employee in the growth of
orgs, you get everything. Employees are the minds that needs cultivation and nurture and this
square in TOP right corner makes lot of sense for this kind of organization. Likes of google, Oracle,
MS, IBM are the few of the MNCs that works towards employees.

8. Disclaimer:
I have taken references from Guy Kawasaki’s inspirational talks, Prof. Bhattachargee’s lessons on
Selfish management along with the details from PMBOK. Lot of self experiences are also added
along with the responses from many of you. In the coming days, months, this Matrix will take its new
shape, it will. I am positive about it. Do send your comments, feedback so that I can enhance it.